Greece will have a caretaker government next week, following the failure of political leaders to agree on a coalition, despite the critical circumstances.

Irrespective of whom the next Greek government will comprise and when it will be formed, its first and foremost task will be to renegotiate the country’s bailout package with international creditors.

I do not know what concrete stand Europe will ultimately adopt towards Sunday’s Greek election and a possible fresh poll soon, but I know that the turning off of the financial tap by the troika would be a very bad idea. Not just for the Greeks but for Europe as a whole.

The big issue now facing the country is how the balance of political forces resulting from yesterday’s election will enable them to govern. However, there is one thing that will affect people’s everyday lives much more directly while we talk politics: what international creditors will do with the bailout installments.

Our vote this Sunday must aim to force politicians cooperate to the country’s and our benefit. Without the collaboration of at least the two major parties, conservative New Democracy (ND) and Socialist PASOK, the country cannot escape the vicious circle of deficits and recession.

The news is quite good but there is also a very worrying development. The good news is that Europe now realizes daily that the austerity model is unfruitful.

Neither indignation nor despair provide a basis for good judgement and voters that will be swayed by them in the May 6 elections are likely to do harm to the country and themselves.

The planned seamen’s and intercity bus drivers’ strikes on Tuesday and Wednesday this Easter week  will have no winners, only losers. They are pointless and harmful to society as a whole, including the strikers themselves.

By Grigoris Nikolopoulos

Here is the list of losers:

-The hard tried ordinary citizens who wish to spend Easter in their home villages or islands (it goes without saying that intercity buses are used by the less well-off).

-The small island entrepreneurs who are now struggling to stay in business.

-The few tourists who decided to defy the image of an unsafe country we have managed to transmit abroad and come and spend the only kind of money that flows into the country and is not borrowed at the moment.

-The Greek economy and the Greek people. This is a strike that does not target the government –in a few weeks’ time there will be a new one. It’s a strike that aims to foster further anger and despair in an already angered and desperate people. And it is, of course, without a doubt a politically instigated strike that will hit citizens and reap no benefits for the strikers.

The leaders of the Communist labor activists –who are hit by the austerity policy just like everyone else- is wrong. Their strike call is an affront to common sensibilities, targets the entire shipping industry and will in no way pressure the government which is going to resign for the elections anyway.

The seamen activists know full well that no decision for a change in policy can be made in the present circumstances. Any decisions will be made by the next government. So, the present government is under no pressure. The only pressure unfairly exerted is on citizens. I do not think that the strike will take place, after all, as the strikers, who are already cursed by everyone, will either back down or will be issued with a military draft court order.

The suicide of a pensioner protesting the austerity measures in Syntagma Square has to cause something more than sadness and fear to the political system. Politicians must seriously take stock of the current crisis and their place in society. They cannot, on one hand, consider that they are at war with the international banking system to defend the country’s place in the European , and on the other not to take seriously into account the consequences of their actions. If they are aware of the consequences, so much the worse.